Текст книги "Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943"

Автор книги: Keith Lowe

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

With the benefit of hindsight, however, all the speculation about Berlin’s fate was hopelessly premature. The RAF could not possibly live up to what was now expected of them: the firestorm they had created in Hamburg had been a matter of chance, and would be virtually impossible to replicate in other cities. Nor were the Allies about to produce the knock-out blow that would end the war. To do so they would have had to demonstrate the power to obliterate any city they wanted at will, which meant destroying Berlin within days, not weeks, then following it up with two or three other cities for good measure. Then, perhaps, Speer’s fears might have been realized. But the RAF had no intention of even trying to accomplish such a feat. While Sir Arthur Harris cherished hopes of teaming up with the USAAF to ‘wreck Berlin from end to end’, he would not make the attempt until the winter of 1943–4. ⁴⁴In the meantime, there were few suitable alternatives for a second strike: to find new targets of even half Hamburg’s size they would have had to fly as far as Breslau or Dresden – but during the short summer nights that would have posed too great a risk for RAF crews. ⁴⁵In the end, therefore, the concept of a knock-out blow was nothing more than a mirage.

In the absence of other targets, the RAF contented themselves with bombing those cities in western Germany that were within easy reach. There was nothing new about attacking Essen, Remscheid or Mannheim – they had all been hit during the battle of the Ruhr earlier in the year – but Bomber Command Headquarters felt it better to attack something than nothing. While important cities like Berlin were still out of range, the RAF might at least destroy the industrial plants in familiar targets that had been missed on earlier visits.

With this in mind, Harris decided that he would finish the job he had started on Saturday night. On the morning of Thursday, 29 July, he ordered a third massive strike against Hamburg. If he could not finish the war by bombing, for now he would content himself with finishing off, once and for all, what was left of the city on the Elbe.

18. Coup de Grâce

I am in blood

Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er

William Shakespeare, Macbeth ¹

Everybody in Hamburg knew that another raid was coming. In the areas that had not yet been hit, people stowed their most prized possessions in basements and cellars, in the vain hope that they might be spared when the bombs fell. Anything portable was piled into cars, wagons or even prams, and the roads were soon jammed with people carting their belongings out of the city. Many travelled on foot, content to get themselves and their families away with little more than a suitcase between them. The single thought that occupied their minds was to get as far away from the city as possible.

While the exodus of civilians accelerated, there was also significant movement in the opposite direction. Not only were the emergency services pouring men and equipment into Hamburg, but the Luftwaffe was doing all it could to bolster the city’s defences. Mobile flak units were brought to the outskirts of Hamburg by train from all around, and huge numbers of searchlights arrived. Fire-fighters worked ceaselessly to control the flames before the Allies could return to stoke them, certain that the bombers would indeed be back. It was now merely a matter of time.

Whenever the air-raid alarm sounded, everyone made directly for their shelters. The relaxed atmosphere that had prevailed a week ago was now a thing of the past, and there was a new, frightened urgency to everyone’s actions. On Wednesday night, not even twenty-four hours after the firestorm, the sirens sounded and there was an immediate rush for the bunkers. It was a false alarm – the RAF were resting their crews, and had merely sent four Mosquitos over the city on a nuisance raid – but it meant that the remnants of Hamburg’s exhausted population were deprived of sleep for a fifth night in a row. The next day there were no fewer than five major alarms, which repeatedly threw the rescue and evacuation effort into chaos. Some were caused by British reconnaissance planes, but the most serious one was brought about by a large force of American B-17s heading for the area. It turned out that the USAAF were flying on to Kiel, so Hamburg was spared for another few hours, but its people remained in a state of high anxiety for the rest of the day.

Although it was aimed at a different city, this last American raid had an unforeseen effect on Hamburg. Afraid that disaster was about to overtake Kiel, the authorities suddenly withdrew all the motorized Air Protection battalions that had been drafted into Hamburg and sent them northwards. In their absence, fires that had been half extinguished flared up, and the Hamburg fire service was hopelessly stretched again. The authorities had allowed panic to get the better of them, and for several hours in the middle of the day confusion reigned before the units were sent back to where they were most needed. ²

That the Nazi authorities were so worried about this daytime raid on Kiel is a measure of how seriously they were beginning to take the new American threat. However, for the moment at least, the USAAF was a spent force. General Eaker had been fighting a desperate battle over the past few days. On Wednesday he had lost twenty-two planes in two ill-fated missions over Kassel and Oschersleben. On Thursday he lost a further ten planes over Kiel and Warnemünde. By the end of that week alone the total loss would be a hundred planes, with the equivalent of ninety crews killed, wounded or missing; he was forced to ground his shaken and exhausted crews for the next two weeks to give them time to rebuild their strength. ³

As dusk approached on Thursday, 29 July, the few people who remained in Hamburg headed straight for the bunkers – or at least made certain they were within immediate running distance of somewhere safe, should the alarm sound. Most no longer cared whether the shelters were comfortable or convenient: the only criterion now was how safe they were. The huge Hochbunkers, like those at Dammtor and the Heiligengeistfeld, had become popular because of the way they had withstood the previous attacks. Few people trusted their cellars now – there was no longer any sense in taking risks.

As darkness fell, the streets were quickly deserted. A stillness descended on Hamburg unlike anything it had experienced in all its 750-year history. Almost a million people had fled, leaving whole districts empty, and soon there was nothing to disturb the silence but the wind that whistled through the glowing ruins. The city on the Elbe was little more than a ghost town.

* * *

While the remnants of Hamburg’s population was seeking refuge for the night, the British were preparing to attack. For most of the day it had seemed doubtful that another raid on Hamburg would be worthwhile: Harris was worried that smoke would obscure the target, making it impossible for the bomber force to locate it properly. But that afternoon a reconnaissance flight over the city had returned with the news that a light wind was blowing the smoke inland, leaving the skies above Hamburg relatively clear. He gave the order to proceed as planned.

For the 5,500 men who attended briefings that evening it was a case of déjà vu. Not only was the target the same, but the route there and back was similar too. They would be taking off at the same time (around 10.00 p.m.), bombing at approximately the same time (shortly before 1.00 a.m.), and returning to base at the same time (at around 4.00 a.m.). The first and last turning points were identical to Tuesday night’s, and the final approach to Hamburg would be almost the same line they had taken on Saturday night. ⁴In fact, everything was so similar to what had gone before that some crews felt they were tempting Fate. On the whole, however, most airmen seemed to think that it would be an easy ride, as the previous Hamburg raids had been.

The RAF planners at High Wycombe knew that it was dangerous to cross into northern Germany so close to the points they had chosen on the two previous nights, but such was their faith in Window that they believed it was a risk worth taking. The route they had chosen was as short as they could practically make it, so that the 777 planes could carry heavier bomb loads. In short, they believed that it was worth sacrificing a little security to deal Hamburg the hardest blow possible.

They knew exactly where the danger zones would be. As the British Pathfinders crossed the German coast they were supposed to drop red route markers to show the way for the rest of the bomber stream. But the flares would be just as useful to the German night fighters in their search for prey – as soon as they were dropped, every night fighter in the area would flock to them like moths to a flame, certain that the British planes would pass through that one point.

The only way to protect the bombers against ambush was to create a diversion. With this in mind, four Mosquitos were sent to drop bundles of Window along an alternative route, to make it look as though a second bomber stream was approaching Hamburg from the direction of Bremen. To add to the deception they would also drop decoy route markers about sixty miles south-west of the bombers’ real landfall. ⁵The idea was that the Germans would have to split their defences in two, making it twice as likely that the real bomber stream would slip through unmolested.

This, then, was the plan of attack for the night of Thursday, 29 July 1943, and, with Window still working wonders, nobody had any reason to suspect that it would be anything but a milk run.

There were a few mishaps on take-off, and a small percentage of early returns due to technical problems. By and large this was nothing to be concerned about, although a 100 Squadron Lancaster collapsed on the runway at Grimsby, blocking it so badly that the twelve aircraft behind it could not take off. ⁶While ground staff tried to sort out the mess, the rest of the bomber stream was gathering over the North Sea and heading towards Germany. They flew largely undisturbed until they reached their first turning point, about sixty miles north-west of Heligoland.

The problems started shortly after the Pathfinders began to drop the first route markers. As predicted, all the German fighters in the area headed straight for them, knowing that this was the one place they were guaranteed to find their prey. What the British had notanticipated was how strong the German response would be. Over the past five days there had been a radical change in German tactics of which the introduction of Wilde Saufighters was only a part. Now that the Luftwaffe could no longer rely on radar they had been forced to give their individual fighters a much freer rein. No longer were they expected to stick to their allocated boxes along the coast, they were now allowed to amass wherever they were most likely to find the British. German fighter controllers still gave a running commentary over the radio about the height and general position of the bomber stream, but it was up to individual fighters to find and kill their prey, using nothing more technical than their eyes. ⁷

That the British took such a predictable route into Germany can only have helped the Luftwaffe. They were expecting the RAF to arrive at a similar point to last time, and had deployed their forces accordingly; the British decoy further south did not do much to divert their attention. With hindsight this is hardly surprising: no matter how many bundles of Window the four decoy Mosquitos dropped, the image on German radar screens could never have been as strong as that produced by the bomber stream. While there is some evidence that the Germans thought a second bomber stream was approaching from the south-west, it must have been obvious that it was simply a diversion. ⁸So, most of the coastal night fighters seem to have remained in the areas where they expected the British to arrive. And as soon as the route markers went down, they pounced.

The first British bomber to be shot down was probably a Halifax from 78 Squadron piloted by Sergeant R. Snape, which crashed into the sea. Six other British planes soon suffered the same fate, all but one within a few miles of the first route markers. ⁹The area around the Pathfinder flares had suddenly become the most dangerous part of the sky. Six other bomber crews were attacked there too, but were lucky enough to come back and tell the tale. ¹⁰Out of the forty-nine crewmen shot down, only one survived – Flight Officer A. H. Boyle parachuted out of his 158 Squadron Halifax shortly before it crashed into German countryside between Heide and Tellingstedt.

Veterans of the bomber war all agree on this fact: an attack from a night fighter came so quickly that there was little time to react, and certainly no time to feel fear. Within moments it was all over, one way or the other. An attack on one Lancaster about this time showed what might happen. Flight Sergeant E. L. Pickles of 100 Squadron was approaching the German coast when a burst of fire came from nowhere, blowing away the whole of the mid-upper turret and killing the gunner. The flight engineer, who had been dispensing Window, was also killed, and the rear gunner wounded in the face. Pickles took immediate action, and dived away fast, but without his gunners to protect him it was plain that he would have to turn back. After instructing the bomb-aimer to jettison his bombs, he turned and headed home. At no point during the attack had he seen the enemy aircraft that was attacking him; and since none of the crew warned him it seems they had been equally surprised. ¹¹The mid-upper gunner in particular had probably died without knowing he was even in danger.

Once the bomber stream had crossed the coast they headed inland and turned towards Hamburg. Three more Halifaxes were shot down over Schleswig-Holstein, two by fighters and one by flak. ¹²They were all on the fringes of the bomber stream and therefore more easily identified by the radar operators – but in any case it seems that Window was not having quite the same effect tonight as it had had on its previous outings. As I have already mentioned, some of the more experienced German radar operators were already learning to tell the difference between the traces left by bombers and those produced by the foil strips. Window, which

had been so effective when it was first introduced just five nights ago, was already losing its potency.

* * *

The Luftwaffe’s next victims were shot down over the target, and it was only here that some British airmen realized they were not going to have the easy ride they had been expecting. There were searchlights everywhere. And not only had the number of lights increased, the way they were being used had also vastly improved. On previous visits to the city, Window had confused the searchlights so badly that they had waved randomly across the sky, or stood perfectly still as though their operators had given up trying to find anything. Tonight, however, they swept the sky with renewed purpose, occasionally grouping together to trap British bombers within vast cones of light until they either escaped or were blasted down by the city’s defences. The flak was more accurate tonight too, claiming three British bombers in and around the target area. ¹³

But it was the fighters that posed by far the greatest risk. Freed from the constraints of the old radar-based Himmelbettsystem (whereby night fighters were kept rigidly in separate ‘boxes’ along the coast), Luftwaffe pilots were taking enthusiastically to their new, freelance role – but the greatest successes fell to Major Hajo Herrmann and his Wilde Saufighters. They were out in force over the city, and that night they came into their own, lying in wait until they spotted a bomber silhouetted against the fires, then swooping down, sometimes even venturing into the flak zone to make good their attack. Of the nine bombers that were shot down above and around Hamburg, three were hit almost simultaneously by flak and fighters, which shows how fearless this new breed of freelance fighters was. ¹⁴There was a new determination in the way the Luftwaffe were prepared to defend their city, and it looked as though it was paying off: half-way through the operation, the British had already lost far more planes than on either of their previous trips to Hamburg.

Flight Lieutenant H. C. ‘Ben’ Pexton of 35 Squadron was one of the unlucky ones. As he was beginning the bombing run his Halifax was caught by one searchlight, then several more, until the cockpit was lit up like day. He released his bombs on target, but almost immediately afterwards the plane was hit by flak and the navigator mortally wounded. Despite throwing the aeroplane around the sky Pexton could not shake off the searchlights, which simply passed him from one to another as he flew, and it was not long before a fighter came in to attack, attracted by the lights. A series of cannon shells blasted into the back of the plane, and both the rear gunner and the flight engineer were killed. As the fighter turned and came in for a second attack, Pexton’s plane was virtually defenceless. Joe Weldon, the wireless operator, tells what happened next:

It didn’t seem long before we were being hit again and, this time, he got the starboard outer engine, which was set on fire. Ben pressed the fire extinguisher but nothing happened. Then the fighter made another run and the pilot told us to bale out. ‘Better go, lads.’ Then, almost immediately, I think, he was hit because he flopped forwards.

All hell broke loose after that. The aircraft went over and must have gone into a spin. I was thrown into a heap and, when I was able to get to my feet, I found the open escape hatch above my head; it was normally in the floor. I can remember what I thought then. Bloody hell! The wife’s going to get a telegram in the morning, saying I was missing. But I didn’t think I was going to be killed; that was the last thought in my mind. There was someone else in there but I don’t know whether it was the bomb-aimer or the navigator. I went for that hatch; I didn’t hang about, I can assure you. ¹⁵

The crew member behind him was in fact the bomb-aimer, Frank Fenton, who gave him a push, then followed him out. The two were the only survivors of the attack. Their Halifax crashed a few miles outside the city they had bombed.

By now it should be obvious just how dangerous the skies over Hamburg had become. However, for one small group of bombers the situation was even worse than it was for the others. Due to a mix-up at Scampton airfield, nine Lancasters of 57 Squadron had been sent out with the wrong ‘time on target’ – while everyone else was due to have finished bombing by 0130 hours, this small group did not arrive at the target until twenty minutes later. Deprived of collective security, and brightly lit by fires so huge they could be seen for almost two hundred miles, ¹⁶this small group of planes was more vulnerable than it had ever been. The entire strength of the city’s defences was now aimed at them, and them alone.

One of the pilots, Bill McCrea, still remembers the terror that gripped him when he grasped that he and his comrades had arrived late:

The journey across and above a blazing Hamburg was one of the strangest I have ever undertaken. No one fired at us, no fighter attacked us, no searchlight was pointed in our direction. But as I turned away after dropping our bombs, I have never felt so exposed and so vulnerable. All I could do was to fix my eyes on the darkness beyond the fires and pray that we could reach that darkness before we were spotted by a fighter. Although we managed to fly clear without incident, one of our colleagues was not so lucky. I watched as a bomber just ahead and slightly below was subjected to a series of attacks from a fighter. It burst into flames and soon commenced its final fiery spiral into the earth below. ¹⁷

The bomber that went down was piloted by Flight Sergeant E. F. Allwright, one of two planes in this small group that were shot down over Hamburg. The other belonged to Pilot Officer G. A. N. Parker; it was hit by flak and crashed in the north of the city. Of the fourteen men in the two planes, only one escaped with his parachute on. The rest were casualties of an administrative bungle that had sent them out virtually unprotected.

The Luftwaffe fought the British all the way back to the coast, then followed them far out to sea, giving up only when they reached the limit of their range. On the return journey a further four RAF planes were shot down, bringing the grand total to twenty-eight – almost the same number of planes that had been lost on both previous raids put together. In return, British gunners claimed to have destroyed four fighters, with another two probably destroyed and three more damaged. ¹⁸

It had been a busy night in the skies over northern Europe, and one of which the Luftwaffe could feel justifiably proud. The German defenders, temporarily shocked into submission by the advent of Window, had not only reorganized, but had also learned an entirely new set of tactics to fight back. The general in charge of air defence, Generaloberst Weise, was so impressed with them that two days later he ordered that they be adopted across the Reich. ¹⁹The lessons the Luftwaffe learned from Hamburg had a huge effect on the way it waged war, and would gradually win it the upper hand once more in the months to come.

* * *

Despite the Luftwaffe’s relative success in the skies, there was little cause for celebration in Germany. The RAF’s bombing had been more scattered that night, but even so it had been devastating. The chief of police claimed later that, in terms of physical damage, the raid had been every bit as bad as that of Tuesday night. In Barmbek alone a single huge fire covered six square kilometres, where a combined street frontage of 167 kilometres was burning. Other parts of the city had also been badly hit, especially the old town, the port, and some western suburbs like Eppendorf. In effect, ‘The whole of Hamburg had become one area fire.’ ²⁰

All of this had happened even though the RAF had wandered off course, and marked the target fairly badly. The British plan had always been to concentrate the bombing in the north-west of Hamburg, to destroy the suburbs of Harvestehude, Rotherbaum and Eppendorf. However, a cross-wind had blown the Pathfinders off course, and they had dropped most of their target indicators in the east of the city, directly over the part of Hamburg that had been bombed on Tuesday night. Indeed, many of the early bombs dropped on the suburb of Hamm, which was already so completely destroyed that a few more incendiaries could hardly have made much difference. But the bombing soon crept back over Eilbek